Instead, TradesNL director
King says he found out Friday that 15 trade workers and 60 project management staff would be laid off from the site in Argentia where the bulk of Husky’s massive concrete gravity base offshore oil platform is being built.
Layoff news has plagued the site since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, but Friday’s news came just a day after a big press conference to announce the
Husky spokeswoman
McConnell would not confirm the number of layoffs, and SDP did not respond to a request for comment.
King says the funding is expected to boost the number of tradespeople working at Husky’s
"For those that are working on site, they're just perplexed. They can't understand how we could have such a huge announcement one day and literally 15, 16 hours later find out there's job losses when the announcement was intended to protect jobs," King said in an interview.
During last week's funding announcement for the company, Premier
However, he would like to know exactly how the public portion of the money will be spent, and he's written a letter to Husky asking for details. He sent the letter to Furey and Energy Minister
"Husky has an obligation to speak to this and they have an obligation to speak to it very quickly," King said. "People are not happy, and people have a right to know where their taxpayer money is going."
In an emailed statement, Parsons said he was not aware of the layoffs until Friday. He said his office contacted
Parsons said the 331 positions supported by the government funding include trades positions largely located at the
"Husky’s original plan, without government investment, would have resulted in the suspension of all construction activities and put both the Argentia and
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